In this day and age where the media is completely slanted towards only covering one side of the story (pro corporate, pro war), it is a necessary part of our media dialogue to have Fahrenheit 9/11 (F911) as part of the discourse.

By compiling various news sources such as archived US news footage from the mainstream media outlets (FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC) just before September 11th when the newly elected president took a good amount of vacation; by acquiring a copy of President George W. Bush’s military record; by showing intensely graphic and grisly footage of the war in Iraq; by acquiring incriminating footage of a crew of American soldiers on a Christmas Eve raid on an Iraqi civilian home; by interviewing soldiers in Iraq; by editing together sound bytes from key US government players (Ex President George Bush Sr, his son George “Dubya” Bush Jr, Colin Powell, Dick Cheyney, Donald Rumsfeld Condoleeza Rice, and others); by showing the reaction of New Yorkers at Ground Zero when 9/11 occurred; by Michael Moore interviewing people from his economically destitute and military recruitment ripe hometown of Flint, Michigan; and by showing President George W. Bush continuing to read “My Pet Goat’ to a classroom of elementary students when he found out the two towers were hit and that America was under attack; all this news footage helps Moore make his intensely incriminating allegations against the fine leaders of this land in his film F911.

The film begins by showing the set-up for the theater of war in this country. The footage shows key US government players preparing for their sound bytes. The viewer sees their noses being powered by an anonymous hand, their hair being combed, microphones attached to their “costumes.” The theater of war is ready to begin.

Moore puts forth that:

The 2000 election was rigged so that George W. Bush would win the Presidential election against Al Gore. The FOX network was the first to state that G.W. Bush won over Al Gore in the state of Florida. Ironically, the man who made the decision at FOX to call G.W. Bush ahead of Gore was none other than Bush’s cousin. To add a cherry atop the cake, Bush’s brother was the Governor of Florida, the state that would take the election decision to the Supreme Court, at that time. Moore makes a strong case that this country is being run more like an aristocracy (my verbage not his), than a democracy. Common sense says that when public elections are rigged, the ruling government is not a very effective democracy.

When September 11th occurred, all who lived through it in America can surely remember that all air traffic in the country was grounded. However 124 Saudi people and 24 people from the Bin Laden family (that would be the family of the man who was accused of being the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks), these Saudi people were allowed to fly out of the country when the attacks occurred while air travel for the rest of the nation was grounded indefinitely. Moore makes an excellent point, especially when he interviews Jack Cloonan, who was a senior agent on the FBI/CIA Al Qaeda task force when 9/11 happened. Cloonan, now retired, basically says that it was absurd that the Bin Laden family was not even interviewed about the whereabouts of their relative Osama before they left the country that day.

There are several moments of emotional manipulation in the film, where Moore’s message comes off as unnecessarily heavy-handed. One of the few instances of this manipulation (there are not many) is when Moore shows the footage of Bush in the Florida elementary classroom reading “My Pet Goat” with the children as he finds out the two towers and the Pentagon have been hit. A time elapsed counter in the corner of the screen shows minutes pass and the shutter speed of the footage is slowed to show a seemingly dumbfounded and indecisive President as Moore comments in the background. I think showing the footage in real time (no slowed shutter) would have been just as effective to his point.

During Bush’s shifty eye gaze in the classroom, Moore pieces the facts together to make the case that the Bush family as well as they key players in our government are basically in bed financially with the Saudis. Furthermore, Moore’s footage goes on to show that many of the key US governmental players and the Saudis in question also happen to be heavy investors in US corporations that actually made money off the 9/11 attacks and the war on Iraq.

As if to further prove Moore’s point, as he is filming an interview for F911 in front of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, the author he interviews claims that the Saudis have 860 billion dollars currently invested in the US economy, and that if the Saudis were to take away all of their investments in this country it would be a huge blow to the economy. As the author makes this point, the secret service walk up to Moore, address him by name, and stop his filming in front of the embassy. After hearing the astounding numbers of the Saudi investments in this country, it is quite ironic that the embassy is being guarded by the secret service. Even more ironically, two nights after 9/11, President Bush invited the Saudi ambassador to dinner at the White House. Moore somehow aquired still photographs of the dinner/meeting between the President and the Saudi ambassador.

During a brave interview with Richard Clarke (a US counter-terrorism official) on Good Morning America which Moore put in F911, Clarke told the Good Morning America host that just after the 9/11 attacks President Bush said that he wanted Clarke and his staff to come back with word that there was an Iraqi hand in 9/11. Mr. Clarke basically said in this interview that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, so to falsely link Iraq with 9/11 he found to be absurd, and said so on national television.

Moore then goes on to show the psychological warfare that the media waged against the American people. There were constant terror threats and news stories. As Moore refreshed my memory, anything was a threat and a potential terrorist target, from pen bombs to model airplanes to ferries and of course airplanes. Moore scores some great footage of President Bush that took place during this time, where Bush says “we must stop the terrorist killers” then says, “now watch this drive” and the camera pans wide to show the President in a polo shirt, teeing off at the golf course. Footage like this makes this particular viewer think that the President takes his sport more seriously than capturing the terrorist killers.

The film then moves overseas, to the first war in Iraq. While some may find the gruesome severed soldier limb footage difficult to watch, I find that mainstream Hollywood films have done a great job to desensitize this particular viewer to such atrocious and senseless violence. I was actually impressed (not with the carnage, no) with Moore’s investigative journalism skills in attaining such obviously censored footage. The mainstream media is not allowed to even show US soldiers coming home in caskets (for fear that it may upset people), of course they will censor the severed limb shots of the US soldiers as well as footage of the Gestapo-style US raid on an Iraqi civilian home on Christmas Eve, which Moore puts in this film.

Back on Stateside, Moore returns to his hometown of Flint, Michigan (reminiscent of Roger and Me). The footage shows the economic destitution of the Flint, Michigan. Moore clearly shows that the high school kids of Flint are ripe targets for military recruiters. Quite impressively, Moore gets permission from two Marine recruiters to film them during their recruitment of the kids. Moore makes a good point here that the people who fight for this country are not the US representatives’ children or children from richer populations. It is from towns like impoverished Flint, Michigan that the US military recruits its soldiers to fight in wars like Iraq.

Many of the people in Flint who cannot find work end up at the Employment Center, where they receive job training and unemployment benefits. Linda Lipscomb, the executive assistant at the Employment Center now becomes a key player in the film. Lipscomb not only helps the people of Flint find work to put a roof over their heads, but she also happens to come from a military family and had both a son and a daughter serve in Iraq. A second instance of emotional manipulation in the film occurs with Lipscomb, as Moore holds the camera a bit too long on this grieving mother when her son returns from Iraq in a body bag.

Just as when I watch the news and I am aware that I am being manipulated (which is often), during those few manipulative moments of F911 I bowed my head into my notebook and took notes for this review.

The film then unzooms to show more incriminating footage of Bush calling his supporters “the haves and the have mores…the elite.” Moore also somehow got access to Walter Reed Medical Center, the hospital where injured soldiers go for treatment of their wounds. The footage in this veterans hospital is quite disturbing yet affective, showing the affect of war on the surviving soldiers. One of the final segments in the film shows a business conference with different companies who are investing in the “opportunity” of Iraq.

Finally, the microphones are unclipped from the clothing/costumes of the key US government players. The curtain falls on the theater of war, and the film ends, with President Bush making a bumbling fool of himself in a speech.

All in all, F911 is a highly effective film. I tend to watch and read the news, so I knew bits and pieces of these facts. Yet it was impressive and intellectually stimulating to see the different facts surrounding 9/11 compiled into a single film. I certainly learned a thing or two after watching F911. The independent thinker and those who think that there is something just not right about the current political stage in America will appreciate this film. It feeds your brain.

(c) Jessica Martin 2004

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older